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On September 10, International Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors (ICMAD) held its 2008 Young Designer Awards Dinner at New York's Twenty Four Fifth. ICMAD president David Schieffelin welcomed attendees, explained the design competition, acknowledged the professionalism of the students' packaging submissions and thanked the sponsors of the event, which included GCI magazine and HBA Global Expo, among others. He then introduced guest speaker Martha Brady, current president and CEO of Caudalie USA and former general manager of La Prairie.
Brady, who presented the awards to this year's winners, discussed the need for creative, effective packaging. "Today, presentation is everything," said Brady, noting that if packaging doesn't perform, the customer won't buy the product again. "You need a certain amount of intellectual curiosity, an understanding of the marketplace and the channels of distribution, as well as what will make your package stand out," she continued. "There's no other word for it; you are seducing with your package."
The first-place 2008 ICMAD Young Designer Award went to Netta Rubin from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York City. Second-place was awarded to Maria Alexandra Maldonado of the Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah, Georgia, and third-place was awarded to Katie Fowler of the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Illinois.
Redken Supports Colorful Neverland
Redken was the creative force behind many of the colors and hairstyles that graced the runway at this season's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York City, including at the Betsey Johnson runway event. Models wore pinafores, striped leggings, waistcoats and bowler hats, making for a colorful mélange. Pink, blue, gold and purple pageboys and short bobs made models' hairstyles an integral part of Johnson's message, while skulls and crossbones, crinolines, elephant-shaped balloons and the ubiquitous cartwheeling Johnson herself—dressed in neon green—stole the show.
Tarte's Fashion Week
This was the first time that Tarte Cosmetics participated in Fashion Week at Bryant Park. Tarte provided the key makeup for Charlotte Ronson's Spring 2009 show, which took place September 6. Beauty.com makeup artist Tina Turnbow's inspiration for the show was Madonna's Lucky Star song and grunge music. She was able to achieve the look with Tarte products such as Provocateur Pressed Mineral Powder with SPF 8 and 24/7 Lip Sheer with SPF 15 in Tea Time.
In addition, Turnbow was the lead makeup artist for Doucette Duvall's show. She created Tarte's look by using eco-friendly products such as Lash Hugger Eco-friendly Natural Mascara and Tarte's new straw palette, Spring Greening, which features a bamboo brush, mineral shadows and vitamin-infused glosses. The palette will launch in February 2009.
MAC Cosmetics in New York
Once again, MAC, a sponsor of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, was an arbiter of the key makeup looks on the runway. For Carolina Herrera, the look was dramatic but had an innate softness. "The inspiration for the collection was Botticelli and the contrast of black and white, so the look is a contrast of a strong eye and a soft lip," said makeup artist Diane Kendal. The eyes were made up with Smolder Eye Kohl from MAC and Lucky Tom eye shadow. MAC Pro Sculpting Powder contoured the face, swept along the cheekbone, and Tippy Powder Blush was applied to the cheek. Nude MAC Pro Cream Colour Base was patted onto the lips, with Lip Conditioner patted over Nude Cream Colour Base, and Bubbles Lipstick layered over the lip conditioner.
Makeup artist James Kaliardos designed the look for Nicole Miller with a plum, smoky eye as the focus. "The look is a soulful voodoo girl who can cast spells," he said. Zoomblack Zoom Lash Mascara applied to the top lashes and lightly touched onto the lower lashes, plus Fun and Games Beauty Powder Blush applied to the cheekbones, highlighted the face. Blankety Lipstick and C-Thru Tinted Lipglass blended onto the lips gave them a soft edge.
Kaliardos, who also created the makeup for Catherine Malandrino, drew on a French vibe for inspiration. "It's a bit Edith Piaf, but the skin and a sensual orange lip keep it contemporary," he added. For cheeks, he applied Fun and Games Powder Blush buffed into the upper portion of the cheekbones and Luna Cream Colour Base on the high planes of the cheekbones. He applied Gentle Coral Tinted Lip Conditioner SPF 15 as a base and top coat to the lips, blotted and finished with Rich Coral MAC Pro Cream Colour Base.
As with the colorful theme of much of the spring 2009 fashion collections, color popped in makeup, whether in deep red or orange lips, as well as in hair color, especially in the styles shown during Betsey Johnson's show.
Cargo Colors Caravan
On September 8, the Caravan Design Collection teamed with Tide Total Care for Style 360 New York during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Cargo Cosmetics worked on the makeup, with hairstyle credits going to Rusk and Conair, as well as to Sarah Munoz, in charge of hair and makeup creative direction.
Peclers' Predictions
On September 12, Peclers Paris, known for its fashion-forward color forecasting, brand strategy, trend research and product conception, invited GCI magazine to a deskside interview with Dominique Assenat, beauty, luxury and accessories director for Peclers Paris, and Jeanine Milillo, managing director of Peclers Paris North America, at their New York City headquarters in the West Village. Assenat revealed the multisensorial influences integral to color and textural design, and ultimately future product development in the areas of cosmetics, beauty, packaging, apparel, consumer electronics and lifestyle design.
From architecture to anthropology, the creative process, which involves the shared experiences and impressions of the Peclers team from a wide range of disparate sources, ultimately results in the creation of 45 new colors each season. The company's exclusive colors are interpreted and come to fruition in a variety of products, both cosmetics, beauty, and beyond.
Assenat noted that forthcoming colors will blend art, nature and hard science with the visual and experimental aspects of their latest trend stories. These color concepts include, for example, "Fan Lab", an innovative and seductive concept; "Fancy Tech," which fuses radiance and futurism; "Arctic Attraction," melding the rustic with the fragile; "Power Full," balancing humanity and technology; and "Fun Therapy," transforming the everyday with humor, bright colors and graphics.
"Peclers integrates the holistic approach to beauty with color," Assenat said. "In cosmetics and beauty, the major issue is naturals and science—the natural and human side with the high-tech. To us, it is the best of both, and we demonstrate how they can interact with each other."
Assenat and her team translated new materials and perceptions into products found in packaging, cosmetics, beauty and color. Their study of the market and its surrounding influences may impact future product development.
For example, their exploration of ceramics comes to life in terra cotta-influenced makeup and beauty looks based on glazed earthenware; in addition, light effects and the refraction of pearls found in nature may be translated to luminescence in cosmetics. Woods, florals and frost also find new interpretation in beauty products.
These influences culminate in an orchestration customized for particular segments of the industry, reflecting the story that is to be expressed. Whether bronze-glazed makeup, subdued patina eyeshadows or the cool mineral notes of the arctic, the concepts expand and communicate in color, texture and light.
Nancy Jeffries is a contributing editor for GCI magazine, covering the industry from her New York vantage. Jeffries has been in the publishing business for more than 20 years. Her introduction to the cosmetics and personal care industry began as editor of GCI magazine from 1997–2000. [email protected]


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From The Booking Desk:
Below is the list of winners (and other nominees) for this year's Agatha Awards. Winners are listed in bold. Awards were announced at this year's Malice Domestic Conference held in Bethesda, Maryland on May 3-5, 2013.
Scheduling Update: Check back next week for the BOLOBooks recap of Saturday's events at Malice.
Best Novel
- The Diva Digs Up the Dirt by Krista Davis
- A Fatal Winter by G.M. Malliet
- The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron
- The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny
- The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan
Best First Novel:
- Lowcountry Boil by Susan M. Boyer
- Iced Chiffon by Duffy Brown
- A Scrapbook of Secrets by Mollie Cox Bryan
- A Killer Read by Erika Chase
- Faithful Unto Death by Stephanie Jaye Evans
Best Non-fiction:
- Books to Die For: The World's Greatest Mystery Writers on the World's Greatest Mystery Novels by John Connolly/Declan Burke
- Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950 by Joseph Goodrich, Editor
- More Forensics and Fiction: Crime Writers Morbidly Curious Questions Expertly Answered by D.P. Lyle
- Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre
- The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery Agatha Christie by Mathew Prichard, Editor
Best Short Story:
- "Mischief in Mesopotamia" by Dana Cameron (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine)
- "Kept in the Dark" by Shelia Connolly (Best New England Crime Stories 2013: Blood Moon Anthology)
- "The Lord is My Shamus" by Barb Goffman (Chesapeake Crimes: This Job is Murder)
- "Thea's First Husband" by B.K. Stevens (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine)
- "When Duty Calls", by Art Taylor (Chesapeake Crimes: This Job is Murder)
Best Children's/Young Adult Novel:
- Seconds Away by Harlan Coben
- The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George
- Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead
- The Code Busters Club, Case #2: The Haunted Lighthouse by Penny Warner
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Best Historical Novel:
- The Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhys Bowen
- Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for Murder by Catriona McPherson
- Murder on Fifth Avenue by Victoria Thompson
- An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd
- Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear

subset: commoncrawl


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Welcome to Valley Aikido
Valley Aikido is a traditional martial arts dojo founded in 1985 with roots in the valley that date back to 1969. The art of Aikido was created in the early 20th century by Morihei Ueshiba or Osensei who said "To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace." Valley Aikido is a member of the United States Aikido Federation through which we are affiliated with Aikido world headquarters in Japan.
Practicing Aikido provides many benefits for body, mind, and spirit—from increased balance, flexibility and strength, to improved awareness, concentration, and self confidence. We welcome students age five and up and offer classes six days a week.
Visit us at 15 Merrick Lane in Northampton Mass. and try your first class for free!


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Your Police Department
Chief's Welcome: Still On the Beat
The City of Battle Creek is a beautiful, diverse and dynamic community. Rich in history and tradition, this city known as "Cereal City" was first discovered by surveyors in 1827. The area was settled as part of the former Milton Township, along the Battle Creek River, in 1833, with the river named after a skirmish between the surveyors and Native Americans. By 1850 the settlement had developed into the Village of Battle Creek, named for the river that flows through the center of our downtown today. Just nine years later, we became the City of Battle Creek.In 1900 the City Council authorized the formation of the Battle Creek Police Department and appointed William H. Farrington as its first chief. He promptly hired 9 officers.
Today, 114 years later, the Battle Creek Police Department still serves the community with excellence, pride and resilience. We are committed to ensuring the public safety of all our residents and guests, providing a full spectrum of police services that enable this department to respond efficiently and effectively to meet our community's safety needs.
We are proud of this department and its many members, and we know that you are, too. The Battle Creek Police Department has a responsibility to our community to deliver proactive and creative community policing strategies and an obligation to treat all in our community with dignity, respect, honor and compassion.
I commit to you that we will be open to your suggestions for improvement, comments on performance and will respond to your complaints. Excellence in service is our proud tradition over the past 121 years, and it will continue to be so.
If you have any questions, feel free to call the Police Administration Office Monday - Friday from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Our phone number is 269-966-3375. Our non-emergency number is 269-781-0911.
Welcome to our community. We are Battle Creek.
Jim Blocker
Chief of Police
Police Department (Non-emergency)
Physical Address
34 N Division Street
Battle Creek, MI 49014
Phone: 269-781-0911Emergency Phone: 911
Other Important Numbers:Calhoun County
Correctional Center:(269) 969-6339 10th District Court: (269) 969-6666 Calhoun County
Prosecuting Attorney:(269) 969-6980 Bedford Township:
(269) 968-6917


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I worked for many years in a corporate environment before starting Albino Dragon. In that time there was a vicious animal that always found its way into projects: scope creep. Let's look at the what Wikipedia has to say about it first:
Typically, the scope increase consists of either new products or new features of already approved product designs, without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget.
Sound like a project you may have backed recently? This blog post is the first part showing how some of that scope creep affected the final numbers.
The Money
Let's be honest, in a post about a Kickstarter project that raised a ton of money (we funded for $589,660), you want to hear about where it went. You probably think the project creator went on a fancy vacation or bought a nice piece of real estate somewhere. And you would be terribly wrong, here is how the whole thing went down…
Total Costs to Date: $572,499
The Name of the Wind started as a modest project, a deck of cards based on Patrick Rothfuss's fantasy novel of the same name. We had several tiers in which you could buy decks, and only decks. This was a good premise, and if we would have started with just this, we would have been fine.
We had planned our standard stretch goals for coins, poker chips, and custom seals. We knew how to make these so there wasn't much guess work there. But even with that there were some issues. I'll focus on the financial issues we encountered for each stage of the project below.
Pretty straight forward. There is a certain amount of attrition in a project so the total amount raised isn't necessarily what is shown at the end of funding. Roughly 1% of backers have failed credit card transactions and there is quite a bit lost to Amazon and Kickstarter fees right off the top.
As with any licensed property, there are also licensing fees. For every new Name of the Wind item we created we had to pay licensing fees. Also pretty straightforward and an expected cost of doing business.
During the course of the project we spent money on traditional ads, utilized a couple of marketing firms, and printed some promotional inserts to mail with each reward package sent out.
One of the unexpected expenses here was our mailing list which grew to about 10,000 people. This actually raised our monthly fee with our provider to about $75 per month.
Shipping and Fulfillment
This is always the part of the process that catches most first time creators by surprise. Having fulfilled a project that shipped over 3,000 packages in the past, I knew that I didn't want to get anywhere near fulfillment on this one so we used a fulfillment company.
The benefit of using a fulfillment company is that you don't have to individually pack 11,334 orders yourself. You can go out and run your business and do business-ey things, like write blogs.
One of the cons of using a fulfillment company however, is that it is more expensive. Really this becomes a judgement call of how much your time is worth and how quickly you would like to get packages out. We could have either:
A. Saved the money in fulfillment and spent about six months packaging and shipping ourselves. This would be a soul-sucking full time job so there is also the opportunity costs associated with not having the ability to complete any other tasks.
B. Pay a processing fee for each package and trust the fulfillment center to do the best job packaging and quality checking each reward sent.
You may be able to tell that I'm a little biased. We went with B.
Art Costs
As many have noted, the art on The Name of the Wind is really top notch. The original budget accounted for about three months to complete the work for this project. After adding new artwork for magnets, bookplates, original art prints, etc that pushed the actual timeline to almost double that.
Toward the end of the art generation phase, we ran into issues receiving completed art assets for the project. This shifted our manufacturing timeline because we needed these assets before seeking licensing approval and placing our orders. In several situations this resulted in paying additional fees to make up the time.
There were also standard art fees associated with Bicycle to produce soft proofs, graphic design, and some enhancements to the original art that were needed during the manufacturing process.
This would normally be lumped in with operating costs (or even advertising), but it was such a large amount that we broke it into its own category. For a gaming company like ours, it's essential that we attend many of the major conventions during the year like Gencon. This is where we have the opportunity to show off games and products and try to sell as much inventory as possible.
The hardest part about conventions is that you have to pay for them a year in advance to get a good spot. Well that and the fact that convention services are basically a legal form of sodomy. I don't know anywhere else I would be allowed to charge $150/day for a sub standard Internet connection.
Operating Costs
The idea of running a Kickstarter as a care free individual is a nice one, but not very practical. I would suggest that anyone taking money to produce a product or service at a minimum create an LLC to give you at least some layer of personal protection. People will always be nice to you when things are going well, but it always helps to be prepared for when they're not.
The cost of doing business trickles all the way down to even the little things like that pirated copy of Photoshop you may be using. We run everything above board which means operating costs include salaries, taxes, and medical benefits for all of our employees. We also pay rent, utilities, legal fees, software licenses, and need hardware like computers and drawing tablets.
Manufacturing (Hard Goods)
These are all of the items that we produced for the project. We started with just decks, but we ended up with oh so much more. This is by far the biggest category when it comes to expenses. When I was running this project, I often referred people back to a very good article written by Fred Hicks.
Much like him, we didn't turn a profit from the pledges themselves. We made enough to manufacture what we needed for the rewards and a little extra inventory that we'll hopefully turn a profit on.
Art Prints
The Court Card Print was by far the worst product that we made. It reduced the numbers of the other prints we sold (including potential uncut sheet sales, an almost identical product), cost more to print, and required a larger tube than we normally use.
We created more unique prints like the Albino Draccus. Prints that cost more to produce than what we actually sold. By creating so many variations we also lost some economies of scale by not being able to just print a lot of a few different ones. Not to mention the added headache of additional SKUs and inventory management fees.
These went as planned except for the Be Wary coin. The original design actually called for two different metal colors which we hadn't done before. This increased our cost on those coins by about 25%. Before you start throwing out a lot of shiny stretch rewards, make sure you inquire about product variations when talking to your vendors before offering something different.
Be very careful when dealing with licensed products. The licensor has the final say on these and you want to make sure you know the terms of the contract before offering certain products and factoring your manufacturing costs.
For past projects we had ordered similar quality shirts at $3-6 each. However, because we were locked into purchasing directly from our licensor, our shirt costs were about $30,000. This was an unexpected expense at the end of the project given that we had expected a similar price point as what we had paid in manufacturing the same item previously.
During the project, we offered these at $6 each or 3 for $12. When setting up the pledge manager we thought it would be too difficult to enforce this so we said we would just go with $4 each per magnet across the board. This also ended badly for us when the magnets we ordered ended up with a higher cost than the original estimate given.
We also created so many different magnets that we once again lost some of the benefits of buying higher quantities of just a few designs. There was a change order fee for each design and the time in approving final proofs was much longer. You're probably seeing this theme over and over at this point: less is more.
Wallpaper PDF Pack
This was offered as a stretch goal but ended up being another bad move. We spent time creating high quality art that wasn't ever fully used. While it might have been another print, that would have resulted in the same problems outlined above: more SKUs and more varied inventory.
This ended up being one of the hardest items to deal with. We didn't receive the artwork until mid October so that it could be sent over to the printer. The product the printer returned was completely unusable; they basically printed the bookplate image on a giant sticker. What was I supposed to do with this, cut out thousands of them by hand with a pair of scissors?
If we would have just been able to order individual bookplates as stickers it would have been far easier. The author of the project had requested that we provide sheets of bookplates though since it would make it far more efficient for him to sign them. We ended up having to have a special die plate created to accomplish this which cost more time and money than we had originally planned for.
We ordered the dice we originally put up as a reward and then our supplier informed us that they had the wrong amount of stock. So we had to re-order again with new stock to make sure everything was the same, leaving us with a smaller variant of inventory that we couldn't use and some backers that were disappointed there was a change to the final product.
Leather Bags
Fortunately, we knew some folks that are super detail-oriented that we knew could make these. They were easy to work with and more than reasonable in their rates. One of the few things that went as planned and according to budget.
This became one of the more complex add-ons for our project. Our overall margins were pretty low and the additional effort and time to manage these didn't outweigh the additional dollars that were brought in as a result. Our vendor didn't realize exactly how popular these would be and the initial estimate of about a month grew to several months when the final order was placed.
This brings up a good point about scalability. Make sure that in a best-case scenario for your project that your vendor will be able to scale up if needed without impacting the delivery date.
The first mistake we made was starting to add in additional art with inverse images. This required two images per card instead of just one. As a result this added more time and cost to our art budget.
The second mistake with the decks was making too many variants. Creating an unlimited version made sense so that we could order more inventory to sell after the project, but the magic/trick deck specifically was a colossal time sink. The proofing process on that alone was ridiculous as we had to proof not only the faces, but the card backs as well while making sure that they matched. This is the equivalent of the amount of work on two of the other decks to create a very specialized niche product that will be difficult to sell in a retail environment.
What's not accounted for
The elephant in the room for us is taxes. You can bet Uncle Sam is going to want a good percentage of what we made. Everyone says, "you shouldn't have to pay, you didn't make anything", "on a cash basis you can still count that money as a deposit since it didn't ship until 2014". These all sound like great things, but this assumes that we didn't make any money on our other product lines and somehow I think if it was that easy, nobody would pay taxes.
We also have quite a few miscellaneous expenses that haven't been factored in. These are anything from the prototypes we create for our next project to administrative fees we haven't been hit with yet on fulfillment.
You can see the difference between our funded amount and the total that's been paid out is about $17,000. The Albino Dragon team worked at least 3,000 hours on this project which would be about $5.60 an hour if we miraculously don't have to pay taxes or incur any additional expenses.
If we would have kept our original scope we wouldn't have funded as much, but our margins would have been much higher. Instead, we created a lot more work than necessary for ourselves and pushed our fulfillment time out by six weeks.
The big lessons we learned on this one:
- Limit the number of products offered. This will make dealing with vendors more manageable by reducing the number of contact points, generate higher margins, and limit potential delays.
- Don't provide deep discounts to create more pledges. It's okay to provide a discount in return for helping a product come to light, but too much of one will result in a lot of work with little to no return.
- Provide rewards in easy groupings for shipping. Allowing add-ons creates a lot of unique pledges that complicates your fulfillment at the end of the project. Bundle your add-ons whenever possible. The caveat to this is that it increases the delay of the entire group if one item takes longer to manufacture.
- Watch out for product variation. What seems like a small difference can really add up both in manufacturing costs as well as added headache when it comes time to differentiate between each product in the warehouse while doing fulfillment.
We took all of these lessons and tried them out on our current project, Dragon Crate. This is our attempt at a one size fits all pledge and so far it's proving successful. As of this writing we are more than 75% funded with plenty of time to reach our goal.
Erik Dahlman is a serial entrepreneur that has crowdfunded over one million dollars over eight projects. He often shares his experiences on albinodragon.com to help creators avoid some of the same pitfalls.


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Consider Kurt Vile — rolling into the Brighton Music Hall with his band of Violators for the second time in four months this Monday. For a few years in the early aughts, the now 31-year-old balladeer drove a forklift to cover expenses and cultivated an appreciation for John Fahey and Brian Eno while consorting with Emerson undergrads. The scenery and ambiance of a Boston air freight company inspired "Space Forklift" off 2008's Constant Hitmaker (Gulcher), and it was in our metropolis that he first distributed CD-R demos under his own name in 2001. (And that is his name — between his family name and the one they gave him, his parents must have anticipated his eventual career path.)
Though the majority of the definitive Vile biography (to be written by a yet-to-be-named author at a yet-to-be-determined point in the future) takes place in Philadelphia or in the myriad cities of his disparate tour stops du jour, Boston gets its own chapter. So when Vile does awesome shit like open for Sonic Youth or J Mascis, it's not a local-boy-makes-good scenario, but it is a formerly-and-briefly-local-boy-makes-good scenario.
"I wasn't going to school, but I was the same age [as college kids]," reminisces Vile. "It was funny. I was this mysterious blue-collar type, but I guess I got the college experience, conveniently, by going to Boston." Vile is speaking to me from somewhere in Philly, where he's enjoying a cigarette and Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, the spine of which he's finally gotten around to cracking after leaving it neglected on the shelf for ages.
"Usually I'll read about somebody who was one of the greats," he says, regarding his fondness for rock biographies. "Obviously Kurt Cobain was one. Springsteen. Dylan. Hank Williams. Neil Young. I like to find out their stories, and I usually end up listening to nothing but their music for a while. It makes their music more like virtual reality, 'cause you know everything that was going on [at the time]."
To varying degrees, Vile's sound is informed by that entire illustrious lot, yet he's a far cry from a rehasher. Murmuring, "I don't want to change, but I don't want to stay the same," on the piquant "Peeping Tomboy" from Smoke Ring for My Halo (Matador), Vile tidily sums up his own music . . . albeit almost certainly while referring to something else entirely.
Not to disparage all his previous material, but history shall pronounce records like ConstantHitmaker and 2009's Childish Prodigy (Matador) as omens of the meditative, hassle-free excellence to come on Smoke Ring. At the risk of hyperbolizing, if Smoke Ring doesn't find a place on your personal "Best Rock Albums of 2011" list, you are probably some sort of awful shithead with shitty taste in music. Exquisitely layered acoustic guitars administer daydream-inducing standouts like "Jesus Fever" and "Society Is My Friend," as Vile intones sheer slacker-chill. It almost doesn't seem fair that anyone could write such an amazing record without appearing to strain themselves.
"I just, y'know, come from the heart," he explains. "More heart, less head. I've tried to force songs, but when you think too much and analyze every word, those songs aren't as good as the ones that come out fast."
KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS + WOODS + ARC IN ROUND | Brighton Music Hall, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston | July 11 @ 9 pm | 18+ | $15 | 617.779.0140
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Manufacturing 'resurgence' possible with accelerated effort
MAPI, Aspen Institute report says 'disciplined' approach needed to address tax, energy, export and Skills Gap issues
A new report release by The Aspen Institute and the Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation (MAPI) last week says that an acceleration of policy changes already in place could lead to a "manufacturing resurgence" that would drive manufacturing's portion of the GDP to level not seen since the end of the 20th century.
The report looked at key issues that most manufacturing experts agree are the key to continued growth in the manufacturing sector: a balancing of export and import policies, greater capital investments in manufacturing, a comprehensive energy policy, addressing the shortfalls in the tax and regulatory issues affecting manufacturing and addressing the Skills Gap in manufacturing. The report said a more concerted effort is needed in all those areas, but that the effort could grow the manufacturing share of GDP from its current level of 11.5% to 15%, a level last achieved in 1998.
"The robust results presented in the study are achievable with only modest acceleration of current trends, and none of the policy recommendations mark a radical departure from current policy trajectories," said Thomas J. Duesterberg, author of the report and the executive director of The Aspen Institute's Manufacturing and Society program. "But they require a willingness to change in a disciplined way."
"With no changes in public policy the manufacturing base will continue to shrink as a share of GDP as it has for the past decade," added Stephen Gold, MAPI president and CEO. "With just a few policy shifts, however, manufacturing in America can experience a resurgence that will ensure new innovation, increased productivity, more jobs, and a rise in living standards on our shores."
If those policy changes are accelerated, the report cited the following benefits:
- Manufacturing jobs would grow by 300,000 a year, or 3.7 million jobs by 2025.
- The U.S. trade deficit would completely reverse course, from a current $500 billion deficit to a $700 billion surplus.
"At a minimum, this forecasting exercise ought to lend some hope that we can indeed look ahead to a manufacturing resurgence and the sustainable economic gains that it brings, if we choose to follow this path," Duesterberg said.
Do you have experience and expertise with the topics mentioned in this content? You should consider contributing to our CFE Media editorial team and getting the recognition you and your company deserve. Click here to start this process.


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Editor's Note: Delivered annually before a joint session of Congress, the State of the Nation Address outlines the Philippine president's priorities for the next 12 months. The first SONA, which comes after inauguration, sets the tone for the rest of their term.
Ahead of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.'s first SONA on July 25, we are republishing the maiden SONAs of his predecessors.
Former President Fidel V. Ramos delivered his first State of the Nation Address on July 27, 1992, where he spoke about addressing insurgency by granting amnesty to rebels, and fighting crime.
Ramos, a military official before becoming president, asked Congress during his first SONA to reinstate death penalty for heinous crimes, pointing out that the country's laws at that time were not enough to address criminality.
The former president also proposed measures on how to uplift the economy and fight poverty, which included the creation of a presidential commission on poverty and a crackdown on tax evaders.
First SONA: Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., Jan. 24, 1966
First SONA: Corazon Aquino, July 27, 1987
Here's the full text of Ramos' first SONA (via The Official Gazette):
Mr. Senate President; Mr. Speaker; Vice President Joseph Estrada; Chief Justice Andres Narvasa; the distinguished members of the Senate and the House of Representatives; Your Excellencies of the Diplomatic Corps; honored guests; fellow workers in government.
This afternoon my traffic escorts saw to it that the delay, because of bad weather, floods on the streets was exactly for one hour in order not to disrupt the schedule of the Joint Session of Congress.
Today we begin our joint and complementary efforts to discharge government's sworn duty to our people and our country.
Ordinarily, this occasion has for its time frame the year just past and the year unfolding.
But for us, this gathering has a more transcendent meaning. For it also begins our terms of office. And that cannot but enlarge our horizon as we survey the state of the nation.
I stand here to ask for the support of Congress and to offer my hand in a partnership of patriotism and progress between the executive and the legislative. Our Constitution specifies separate powers and responsibilities for Congress and the presidency—as distinct and coequal branches of government. Yet our Charter also reminds us we are not rivals for power, but partners in serving the national interest.
Though there are tasks that only the executive or the legislature must carry out, we are both trustees of a common heritage, a common interest, and a common purpose.
We stand on the threshold of destiny. The end of my term will coincide with the centennial of our declaration of independence. Six years hence, the governments this nation has endured will pass in review and receive the judgment of history. They will be asked what they will do, what they did with the country's independence. My administration will be the last before the centennial. That is my luck, for it will naturally receive the closest scrutiny. It is not only the spirit of independence that will demand a reckoning. In the next six years, the nation will commemorate other great centennials: the Cry of Pugad Lawin, the Battle of Pinaglabanan, the execution of Rizal. One hundred years of sacrifice and struggle. The ghosts of a generation of founding heroes shall step from their monuments to demand an accounting of the legacy they left behind.
In this spirit, I come here today to report to you on the state of the nation; and to tell you of the course I propose we follow in meeting our shared responsibility.
Twenty-eight days ago, I entered into the presidency. Since then, my principal object has been to know all that one can possibly know—in that brief time—of the problems facing the nation, the opportunities open to us, and the support we can count on from our people and from our friends in the world. I shall not pretend that my administration now knows all the answers. Nor that we now have all the requisites to meet every problem and every contingency. But this much is clear to me: Though our problems are grave, we are much better placed to address them than our predecessors were, a year or so ago.
Though obstacles may shadow our labors, we have the crucial requisite for surmounting them: and that is the combined resolve of our people and their elected representatives to join together and face all problems and all dangers.
I see our task not in terms of any specific problem but in the light of the purposes of union enshrined in the Preamble to our Constitution:
To build a just and humane society and establish a government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality and peace.
Some of these hopes have attained a measure of fulfillment under the past administration and the last Congress.
Certainly we are today a nation confirmed in our constitutional democracy: strengthened by the trials we have weathered.
Considerable stability has been attained in the economy—as efforts at stabilization, restructuring, and reform over the last six years have borne fruit.
But our people still live under the weight of many problems. The indicators of national life tell us just how heavy is this burden: The top 20% of Filipino families receives 50% of our country's total household income; the lowest 20% receives only 5%. At least 5.8 million families—over half of all our households—do not earn enough to meet their basic needs.
In 1991, some 2.3 million of our workers were jobless; and 7.6 million of those who had jobs were working less than 40 hours a week.
Meanwhile, 860,000 young people join the labor force every year.
These severities of economic life translate into grave problems in politics and social life.
Today we are one of a few countries burdened with the combined weight of communist insurgency and other rebellions.
Crime makes our streets unsafe, and threatens our citizens in their homes.
Social services have lagged behind the rise of population and the mass migration to our cities of poor rural people. Neighborhoods are deteriorating and too many families are without adequate housing. Our education and health services are under unbearable strain.
And every day that we delay meeting these problems, they grow more intractable.
The test is whether we can act with dispatch to answer these challenges—not tomorrow but today.
Peace and security are the first urgent problem. For as long as instability and uncertainty characterize our common life, we shall not make any headway. This is why in my inaugural address I immediately raised the issue of amnesty to enable rebels to reenter civil society as law-abiding citizens.
Our goal must be to attain a just, comprehensive, peaceful, and lasting resolution of the internal armed conflict that has cost the nation and our people so dearly.
This effort must go hand in hand with the thrust of my government to institute basic reforms to root out the causes of rebellion.
After lengthy consultations within the government and the private sector, I am now prepared to take the following steps.
First, I am submitting to Congress today an amnesty proclamation that will cover some 4,500 former rebels—2,100 former members of the CPP-NPA and 2,400 former members of the MNLF—who have already applied for amnesty under Executive Order No. 350, promulgated on March 13, 1989, as well as those who may still wish to apply for amnesty under this Executive Order. I ask for immediate Congressional concurrence.
This grant of amnesty is the initial step in a comprehensive peace and unification process that shall address the problem of bringing back all other rebels to the fold of the law. I therefore invite both chambers of Congress to join the executive in constituting a National Unification Commission, that will include representatives of the private sector. This commission will undertake extensive consultations with concerned sectors of society, including rebel groups, in order to formulate a viable amnesty program and the process that will lead to a just, comprehensive, and lasting peace.
And before i proceed any further let me sign in your presence my Letter of Transmittal of Proclamation No. 10 to the Honorable Senate President and to the Honorable Speaker of the House as follows:
I transmit herewith Proclamation no. 10 titled "Granting amnesty in favor of persons who have filed or will file application for amnesty under EO no. 350 Series of 1989 for your concurrence pursuant to Sec. 19, Article no. 7 of the Constitution.
The committee must submit its findings and recommendations within 90 days.
I have also directed the Secretaries of Justice, Defense, and Interior and Local Government to review the cases of so-called rebels under detention or serving sentence and to recommend as soon as possible who can be released through administrative action, granted executive clemency, or recommended for release under bail, with the end in view of further creating a favorable climate for national unity.
Finally, I ask Congress to repeal Republic Act No. 1700, as amended, so that the Communist Party of the Philippines and similar organizations will no longer be outlawed but allowed to compete freely, openly, and peacefully in the political, economic, and social arena instead of their following the path of the armed struggle.
Peace is a process. And we must all join hands to bind and heal the conflicts that have so long divided and held us back.
Crime is the other problem that endangers our peace.
When public order breaks down; when men, women and children fear for their safety in the streets and in their homes; when contempt and mistrust characterize citizens' attitudes toward lawful authority; then we all—young and old, rich, and poor—are victimized.
These past 28 days show what we can do once the will is there. The creation of the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission is only the beginning. More is required to eradicate this plague in our society.
First, I ask congress to restore the death penalty to cover heinous crimes, which of late have enjoyed a resurgence—encouraged, no doubt, by the weakness of our deterrents.
Second, let us deal decisively with the scalawags in uniform by doubling the penalties for law enforcers and military personnel who commit criminal acts. And let us in the same measure provide incentives and rewards for public servants in uniform who show dedication and skill.
I saw many of them out in the flooded streets of Quezon City and Manila as I was coming here this afternoon.
Third, let us improve our institutional and professional capability for crime prevention and crime suspension at both national and local levels. These measures should include a stricter firearms control law and more effective actions by our peace and order councils.
In the economy, let us move forward from stabilization and restructuring to measures and policies designed for growth. One step above all is essential: the formulation of a national midterm development plan for the six years from 1993 to 1998. In the framing of this plan, I invite the participation of Congress; and this can be facilitated by the speedy creation of a Legislative-Executive Development Council, which I recommend to you.
I shall soon submit to Congress the proposed national budget for fiscal year 1993.
Through the budget, we shall pump-prime the economy; stimulate growth by focusing public investments on programs with the highest productive and economic returns; and provide social services and productivity programs that will empower the majority among us who are now without the means to lead decent and useful lives, particularly the farming, fishing, and labor sectors.
Infrastructure building we must push aggressively. This will not only create jobs in the countryside. It will also give investors proof of our resolve to provide growth a solid foundation for sustainable development.
Our priorities are communications, arterial highways, local and national roads, major bridges, urban highways, and major water conservation and flood control projects.
For efficiency and continuity, all these should be provided multiyear funding. We shall also tap private resources under the build-operate-transfer and similar schemes. To liberalize the private sector's entry into the transport industry, it will be necessary to amend the 50-year old public service law.
To finance this infrastructure program, we shall be unrelenting in collecting what is due the government in taxes, duties, and other revenues. This can be attained primarily by cracking down on tax evaders. Tax evasion can be curbed if we can show that tax evaders—whoever they may be—will not go undetected and unpunished.
But let me also tell you now that we cannot make do with our present revenue base. Development has a price that must be paid.
And we shall submit to you a set of revenue proposals that will enable us to pay this price equitably.
On debt management, we are adopting a growth-oriented strategy, to contain our obligatory burden of debt servicing.
I assure you we shall also be much more assertive in negotiating with our creditors to gain better terms.
Some members of Congress have expressed anxiety about my decision to sign the new restructuring agreement that the past administration had reached with private creditors. But let me tell you that to forego this agreement would have meant stalling our forward movement and going back to square one—without any assurance that we can renegotiate let alone get better terms.
To maintain economic stability, we need continued fiscal and monetary discipline. We intend to keep the budget deficit within manageable and acceptable levels.
By adhering to this austere monetary program, we should be able to keep down inflation to a single digit throughout the rest of the year and beyond.
Alongside the monetary program, we need to improve the fiscal position of the Central Bank.
These measures will set the stage for strengthening the financial system—and bring down the regime of high interest rates. We should then be able to mobilize development financing for both agriculture and industry—not just through government financial institutions but primarily through the private banking system, whose business that ought to be.
In energy, we have moved with speed to moderate the crisis. But a new Department of Energy is still imperative—to make sure our experience of long brownouts during the past several months is never repeated and our long-term energy needs are met.
This new department will plan, implement, coordinate, and supervise all policies and programs on energy. The law we propose will also establish an energy development fund to be sourced from the Oil Price Stabilization Fund.
In trade, we expect a rise in export demand as our major markets return to growth. You can count on the executive to do all we can to make our industries worldwide competitive.
This means gradually abolishing all remaining quantitative restrictions on trade, liberalizing the foreign exchange market, and adopting a more realistic foreign exchange rate.
In support of the Foreign Investments Act, I ask Congress to amend the Condominium Law and liberalize nationality requirements in the Omnibus Investment Code. The objective is to make foreign companies secure in the possession of their plant sites in industrial estates.
We shall also review the present system of incentives to make it more attractive and encourage the flow of investments into the economy.
All our policies for growth will have a deep concern for protecting our environment. Our natural surroundings must be the beneficiary of modernization, not its victim.
I urge this Congress to take up anew the ban on logging which should, however, consider the possibility of identifying the areas where logging can be permitted under the concept of sustainable development.
I am also submitting for your urgent action an Environment Protection Code and a new Forestry Code to institutionalize the control by local communities over forests within their territories.
These measures will in time move the economy back to growth. But let us not imagine that growth by itself will suffice to bring the poor majority of our countrymen and communities into the mainstream of development.
If we are to substantially reduce poverty in the Philippines, economic policy in the large must become sensitive to the well-being of the majority among us who are without the means to enjoy decent and useful lives.
Within the week, I will sign an Executive Order creating a President's Commission to fight poverty, which shall gather under one umbrella all government activities designed to help our poor households and communities so that they catch up with the more progressive ones.
We shall undertake three main types of intervention against poverty: The first is to ensure the delivery of basic social services to the poorest communities and to make sure that every poor family has a decent minimum of health, nutrition, housing, and education. The second is to see to it that the poor gain access to agrarian reform, skills training, and extension services that will open up livelihood opportunities and jobs to them. And the third is to help poor communities organize cooperatively to empower them to play a greater role in their own development and to make their voices heard in the making of public policy.
We must, in sum, depart from the "trickle-down" policies of the past, which had only left our poor farmer and other communities farther behind, and move into a policy of "positive discrimination" to lift them up and equip them with the humanities of life. Government will set itself not just theoretical but measurable standards for gauging its success in easing poverty year after year.
To act in this way for our poor is to assert the timeless principle that if we are to develop, we must invest in people. For our nation can rise only to the level of our people's competence. The most profitable human investment is in basic education. I urge Congress to pass a bill on elementary education for the purpose of insuring universal and higher quality elementary education to the end that every Filipino child has access to a quality public elementary school. It will also ensure exposure of our young to technical and scientific knowledge. There are still thousands of barangays today that do not have elementary schools. In addition, we must upgrade the quality of instruction, textbooks, and school facilities. In sum, we must give the highest priority to elementary education in our spending program. To stress this is not to ignore the requirements of public secondary and higher education. These also merit our attention. But we must recognize that to bring our educational system into the mainstream of national renewal, we must begin at the beginning by making sure that every Filipino child has an elementary school within easy reach and that our young people are exposed to technical and scientific learning. We have to learn to talk of growth not in terms of statistics, but in terms of people: in the child we save from hunger and raise to knowledge, in the citizen we raise to a life of dignity and well-being, in the woman we raise to her true place in our society, in the community that we transform from distress into a net contributor to national vitality, and in a national culture that truly reflects and appreciates the native talent and resourcefulness of the Filipino. It has become a cliche, but it is nonetheless true: Real development has a human face.
We have missed perhaps this human dimension in our labors because government has become too big and has spread itself too thin. Over the last 28 days, one thing has become plain to me. For us to get anywhere, we need to remodel the very machinery of government. We have to reorganize the civil service so that it can do more—and do better. We must rationalize the public corporate sector by privatizing those of its operations which are better undertaken by private enterprise. And we must devolve and decentralize more of national administration so that government truly reaches out to our citizenry, wherever they may live in our vast archipelago.
This effort can be propelled only by definitive support from Congress. Since the reorganization will affect most of the cabinet departments, it does not make sense for us to reorganize piecemeal.
I would urge Congress therefore to consider one comprehensive "Government Reorganization Act" that will enable us to streamline the entire executive branch, including the Office of the President.
Our goal here is to promote speed in decision making and action that yields quality results; and to increase effectiveness and impact in government operations despite funding constraints.
We envision the following as integral parts of this reorganization program: (1) implementation of the law on attrition; (2) realignment of agency mandates by abolishing nonessential functions including vacant positions; (3) integration of all attaches and offices abroad; and (4) reduction of the number of departments and agencies.
Some have mistakenly thought that this is a request for blanket authority for the president in reorganization. What we seek is a law that will fully enable us to reorganize the executive branch. Others fear that reorganization will result in massive layoffs. This is not envisioned at all. The only ones who have to fear displacement are 15 to 30 employees and all those who do not possess civil service eligibilities.
Reorganization and professionalization of the civil service will greatly strengthen our hand in checking graft. But we shall not rely only on these reforms, nor on the independent work of the ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan.
As I proposed in my inaugural address, we must take action against both the bribe-taker and the bribe-giver. Surely we must be more aggressive against those who pay grease money to facilitate transactions with government. We will provide the ombudsman all the assistance in carrying out a successful campaign against graft and corruption.
In aid of this campaign, I urge Congress to pass a bill which addresses economic crimes and heavily penalizes graft and corruption. The bill could be patterned after the well-known RICO statute in the United States.
The overriding principle we must establish in government is that only by joint action—at national and local level—can we ever hope to achieve our goals and aspirations.
While many of our problems are national in scope, they exist in neighborhoods and local communities. Hence, the solutions must in the end be tailored to local needs.
While our problems require a broad national strategy and the political will to attack them, our response must be enriched by local perspectives and private sector participation.
No program—no matter how generously funded—an hope to uproot problems if it is based or developed solely in Manila. It must be founded on the life and experience of our local communities and enhanced by private sector involvement.
This is why we must move with dispatch. This is why I have established extension offices of the presidency in the Visayas and Mindanao. We must translate into reality the principles embodied in the landmark Local Government Code of 1991.
Precisely because decentralization departs drastically from tradition, we must nurture the process of change to ensure our local governments are empowered to cope, not just by law but by our aid and intervention in Congress and the executive.
Finally, I want to endorse in the strongest terms the passage of an act strengthening the Metro Manila Authority.
To live in Metro Manila today is literally a punishment—to exist with garbage, smog, traffic congestion, flood, and substandard public services. The atomized jurisdictions in the metropolis cannot deal with problems that are collective in nature. The only answer is a metropolitan administration that will deliver basic services effectively to all of Metro Manila.
And it should be an administration headed by an appointive Metro Manila governor. No one should fear by such title the emergence of a new political personality who will dwarf elected Metro officials. His will be a strictly service-oriented office, nonelective, and fully subject to recall by the test of effectiveness.
In foreign relations, we must chart our course in a world—and an Asia-Pacific region—much changed by recent events. The end of the Cold War may have eased the danger of a nuclear confrontation. But, ironically, the loosening of big-power tensions makes more likely the breaking out of quarrels within the region—which the superpowers once restrained, for fear of getting involved in them. Fortunately, there are few such quarrels threatening our part of the world. For the moment, securing continued access to world markets and technology must become the most vital concern of ourselves and our regional partners.
We have started reorienting our diplomatic service, to focus it on foreign trade and investment—in a word, to make it a tool of our effort at export-oriented development.
To the extent consistent with our constitutional responsibilities, let us together frame our foreign policy in a spirit of bipartisanship. And let it be truly national in character.
Our external defense we had implicitly entrusted to the Americans, under an a military assistance agreement and a military bases agreement with the United States. This had enabled us to get away with the smallest defense investment in ASEAN. Those agreements have already lapsed.
Now we must take up the responsibility for our own defense. Most urgently, the capabilities of both our Navy and our Air Force must make a quantum leap. And we shall have to accelerate our entire self-reliance program for the armed forces. Fortunately, this program will have beneficial side effects that are more than just military—in the transfer of technology, in job generation, and even in the potential export of defense products.
I believe—with all my heart—that our people and our country can be sure, now more than ever, of the loyalty, dedication and efficiency of their armed forces and national police. Let us give our soldiers and policemen the support they deserve.
Ladies and gentlemen of Congress: It is time to view our nation afresh—to see it the way our revolutionary heroes must have seen it at its birth—as a nation in which the common good is attainable. For too many years, we have defined our national life in ways contrary to our unity and progress. We have defined our politics in terms of conflict and competition: it is time we defined it in terms of cooperation and union. We have defined economic effort in terms of profit and self-interest: It is time we defined it in terms of sharing and caring. We have defined our culture in terms of jealous provincialism: It is time we defined it in terms of pride and linkage—taking what we can from the best of others, and giving what we can of our best to them. We the Congress and the executive can provide the example and the leadership for such cooperation, sharing, and linkage. You and I can act separately—and achieve very very little. Or you and I can act together—and achieve much, much more. The time is short and our responsibility is clear. In our hands, ladies and gentlemen of Congress, is the opportunity to turn the remaining years of this century into the resurgence of the Filipino nation. We have it in our power to achieve this goal. We also have it in our power to lose this chance—and condemn our country to continued decline and failure. I know we shall not fail. I know that we shall do all we can—severally and together—to make our stewardship of government a good one for our people and our country. The need is here. The need is now. Let us not allow our troubles to disperse our men and women all over the world—to be the housemaids and janitors of more fortunate peoples. Let our problems rather bind us together in one concerted action to banish the sorrows of the past, confront the difficulties of the present, and redeem the promise of the future. And when our collaboration shall have produced the prosperity and well-being of our people and our country, then might we say we have lived up to the sacred oaths with which we entered office. And our people will say to us—well done. Thank you and good day.
Maraming salamat po sa inyong lahat.
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In the Groove
Happy Canada Day and 4th of July, and a big hooray for wherever you call home! July is a month of fun and celebration, and we hope you'll enjoy kicking it off with The Groove!
In this issue, you'll find layouts celebrating the spirit of "home". You'll also be challenged to make a home-town pride layout of your own, and be eligible to win one of three Mega Expansion Packs for Scrapbook MAX! 2.0!
Read on for news on the latest digital scrapbooking kits, and for fun scrapbooking inspiration!
O, Canada!
Canada Day is celebrated on July 1. This year, Canada is 144 years young! Here are two gorgeous red-and-white layouts. ValerieElaine gets into the spirit with a fireworks display, and Marion displays gifts she received from Canadian friends made in our very own Scrapbook MAX! community – how cool is that?
4th of July – "Take Two!"
Happy 235, USA! Whether you're celebrating with a town parade, a barbecue, or a gathering with family and friends, we hope you enjoy this special day! Does the layout below look familiar? Check out stangergirls' 4th of July layout featured at the top of the newsletter and the second one below. She shows us how you can take the same favorite photo and use it in a completely different way, still getting spectacular results. It's all about getting creative (and using a photo as many times as you want is the advantage of going digi!). Gorgeous!
Groove Layout Challenge – Spectacular Prizes!
July is a month of fun, celebrations and home-town pride! That's why The Groove is challenging you to make a layout celebrating wherever it is you come from (Nanna Susie's Parade layout above is great inspiration!)!
What makes your city, town or country special? Get creative, and make a layout to show off your special place. Then, post your layout in the Challenge Thread here (visit the thread for posting instructions).
Now here's the super fun part – the names of three challenge participants will be drawn at random and each of these winners will get the Scrapbook MAX! 2.0 Mega Expansion Pack of their choice! (Please note that Mega Expansion Packs require Scrapbook MAX! 2.0 software to work). You heard right – you can win a Mega Expansion Pack just for participating in this fun challenge!
What's a Scrapbook MAX! 2.0 Expansion Pack? So glad you asked! 🙂
An Expansion Pack is a set of awesome digital scrapbooking kits and coordinating templates pack made by some of the top designers in the industry, exclusively for Scrapbook MAX! 2.0. We currently have 8 different packs available (and counting!), including themes such as Birthday, Christmas, Baby, Family Heritage, and more! Each pack comes with at least 10 premium digital scrapbooking kits and 10 premium templates. You get over $100 worth of items in each pack, for only $19.95 per pack!
Learn more about our Expansion Pack collection – collect them all today!
**NEW RELEASES!** – Digital Scrapbooking Kits and Templates!
Great new kits are added to the Scrapbook MAX! Digital Scrapbooking Kits and Templates Store each month. Be sure to stop by and check out our awesome selection of embellishment kits and template sets, professionally-designed to work with Scrapbook MAX! digital scrapbooking software.
Below is a small sample of some of new kits recently added to the store by various designers:
Look for next month's issue of The Groove on August 1, 2011!


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Add a playful and eco-friendly touch to your food presentation with our Connecticut Toothpick Flags, proudly made in the USA! Each pack includes 100 high-quality flags made from durable, biodegradable paper and compostable toothpicks. Use them to decorate cupcakes, sandwiches, fruits, or hors d'oeuvres, and watch as they add a charming touch to your food display. These flags are sustainable and made with the highest quality in mind, ensuring that they can withstand any food preparation or presentation process.
Make your event a memorable and sustainable success with our Connecticut Toothpick Flags. We take pride in offering an environmentally friendly product that will break down naturally over time, leaving a minimal environmental footprint. Plus, our toothpick flags are made in the USA, ensuring quality and supporting American manufacturing. Order yours today and impress your guests with a playful and eco-friendly addition to your food presentation.


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Starr Pest Control Ltd.
Best Pest control service in San Antonio Texas
Bugs are invading your home and you don't know what to do?Starr Pest Control is here to help! We offer a variety of services that can rid your home of any unwanted pests. We have a team of experts who are knowledgeable in all areas of pest control and will work diligently to ensure that your home is bug-free.Don't let bugs take over your life - call Starr Pest Control today for a free consultation! You'll be glad that you did. For more information, give us a shout at (210) 988-6148. We look forward to speaking with you soon!
San Antonio ( SAN an-TOH-nee-oh; Spanish for "Saint Anthony"), officially the City of San Antonio, is the seventh-most populous city in the United States, second largest city in the Southern United States, and the second-most populous city in Texas as well as the 12th most populous city in North America with 1,434,625 residents in 2020. Founded as a Spanish mission and colonial outpost in 1718, the city became the first chartered civil settlement in present-day Texas in 1731. The area was still part of the Spanish Empire, and later of the Mexican Republic. It is the state's oldest municipality, having celebrated its 300th anniversary on May 1, 2018.The city was the fastest-growing of the top ten largest cities in the United States from 2000 to 2010, and the second from 1990 to 2000. The city of San Antonio serves as the seat of Bexar County; San Antonio is the center of the San Antonio–New Braunfels metropolitan statistical area.
Adams Hill, Braun Hollow, Brookside, Burning Tree, Camelot, Central Los Angeles Heights, Denver Heights, Dignowity Hill, Dominion, East Side, Eastside Promise Neighborhood, Eden, El Dorado, Five Points, Gardendale


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Robert Stark, Sam Kevorkian, and J.G Michael talk to Swedish Synthwave Artist Damokles. Check out his work on SoundCloud, Facebook, and Future 80's Records which produces his music.
Intro: Into the Future from the new Time Machine album
Damokles' new 14 track album Time Machine
The Time Travel Theme; Back to the Future
Creating synth music since the 70's
Influences including Kraftwerk
Favorite songs including Yazoo's Don't Go and Don't You Want Me? by the Human League
Experimentation with synthesizers in the 80's
Being a DJ in the 80's and how DJ culture has evolved
Working as a piano bar entertainer
The New Retrowave genre and how it is different from original 80's synth music
Industrial music
The future of electronic music, the mainstreaming of synthwave, and the need for an alternative to mainstream pop
The pros and cons of producing music online without large corporations
Cinematic influences; sci-fi and horror
The illustrations for the albums
80's Retrofuturism
Visions of the future and how humans are becoming cyborgs
Click Here to download!
This show is brought to you by Robert Stark's Paintings!


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There have been coffee brewer improvements that have enhanced energy efficiency.
There are options for coffee brewers that help increase energy efficiency. With digital models, a feature is available that will put the unit into a sleep mode when it is idle for a certain period of time. When this occurs, the brewer's heating element allows the temperature to drop, conserving energy.
More efficient heating elements are available, in addition to units designed with better heat holding capability within the cavity.


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How to Read a Math Textbook
MAX (Macalester Academic Excellence) CenterKagin Commons, First Floor 651-696-6121
Download this handout (PDF)
NOTE: This passage was written with math textbooks in mind. It is equally appropriate for a chemistry or physics textbook, so please substitute science for math, depending on your class.
Reading a mathematics text is very different from reading ordinary English. Trying to read math the same way as a novel or a history text is certain to cause you trouble. Math text typically alternates passages of explanation in English with pieces of mathematics. Even its English, however, is of a special and stylized kind.
When reading any explanatory material in a math text, the main principle is simple: read every word, one word at a time. There is no "catching the drift" and then filling in from later paragraphs. The authors will say his or her piece only once. If the author does seem to repeat, it is probably to make a slightly different point. Every word counts, even a two-letter word!
Forget about speed-reading; one small paragraph may take ten minutes! Understand each part of each sentence as you go along. Keep in mind that familiar words may have mathematical meanings that you need to learn. Of course, you need to know the mathematical meanings of those unfamiliar mathematical words, too. If you cannot understand the passage, then stop to think and go over mathematical definitions of words you are reading until you figure out the meaning. Often it is necessary to start reading at the beginning of the passage several times. Take your time. There is simply no way to rush the process. It is a slow and delicate business…and "slow is fast!"
With actual mathematics (equations and such), the trick is simply to see how each line follows from the line before. If the step is especially obscure, the author may provide some written explanation. But be sure that you understand where each line comes from, before you go on to the next line. If you skip even one step, the rest of the steps will make little or no sense to you.
It is best to read mathematics with pencil and paper at hand, and to reproduce it yourself as you go along. But do not merely write down what you see in the book. Instead, try to work out each line for yourself, step by step, with the author.
Really important mathematical passages are problems that the author has worked out in detail. Successful students rely on these very heavily. One widely used series of review texts in mathematics consists entirely of solved problems.
How to work a solved problem in the textbook:
Start with a solved problem, working it through to the end, one step at a time. Then close the book, and try to work it through again on your own. Do the whole problem as many times as necessary, until you can reproduce the whole solution with the book closed. But try not to memorize the solution. Instead, keep track of "what to do" to move from each line to the next of the operations. Your version of the solution will probably have more lines than the author's. That's good. It may sometimes take you two or three steps to accomplish what the author does in one.
Working solved problems does take a lot of time. It is not unusual to spend an hour or two on a single page. Try to be patient.
After you can work through the solved problems on your own, the homework exercises will give you little trouble, for they are usually very similar. Exam questions, too, will mostly follow the same pattern. In short: time spent on problems the author has solved for you will pay off in high grades.
Some students are discouraged to see how easily the author sails through a tough problem. "I never would have thought to do that." "How did s/he know that adding x^2 to both sides would make it come out?" "If we're supposed to do this on an exam, I'm finished." These are common reactions. But what you see in the book is only the author's final product, carefully cleaned up for publication. He or she produced wastebaskets full of scratch paper to find that clean solution. And teachers do the same when preparing for a lecture. We math people make math look easy because we work hard at it when you aren't looking.
Remember that you will not be expected to invent a new problem-solving technique on the exam. Your task is to do the techniques already shown to you in class and in the book.
Some math texts use pictorial illustrations, and some do not. Like the words, the picture needs slow and careful study. A quick glance will not do, as it might in a biology text. Every line, every symbol is there for a specific reason, and you should take the time to understand the picture thoroughly – in detail. This is especially true of graphs and charts, which often contain a great deal of information in a small space.
As you can see, you do not merely read a math test – you work through it! The information has to be dug out, not just skimmed from the surface. It is a slow business, and the only good way to understand what the math text is trying to tell you.


text: When I read about Karl Lagerfeld urging men to slap a turban on their heads in the name of high fashion, I wanted to see what Karl himself would look like wearing one. The turban, errr "Murban" shown on the sleek male model in the accompanying article wasn't the sort you'd see on a handsome Sikh riding a fine stallion into the sunset, nope, it looked more like something granny would wear to keep her hair dry while she swam her morning laps at the local YMCA. Medium: Ink and acrylic on paper. SOLD


text:
We take your basic ideas and quote an all-inclusive price over the phone so you can know right away what the total cost will be.
We take the logo, text, and color scheme and design what we feel you are looking for, by using professional designers.
We'll work with you until we get your design dialed in to your exact specifications. Production will begin upon approval.


text:
Decision on NNSA Furloughs Likely Within First Month of Sequester
The semiautonomous Energy Department agency is "working to avoid or minimize furloughs of NNSA's federal work force to the extent possible," according to officials.
Acting National Nuclear Security Administration chief Neile Miller said on Thursday it might take one month before it becomes clear whether agency employees will have to be furloughed as a result of the federal budget sequester expected to take effect on Friday.
In a Thursday memo to NNSA employees, Miller noted that her "senior leadership team has been working very hard to implement cost-cutting measures across the enterprise in order to mitigate the effects of sequester, should it occur. In addition we are working closely with our lab and plant partners to assess potential impacts on those operations."
However, while officials at NNSA headquarters "are doing everything we can to protect our work force and our critical mission, there remains the possibility of furloughs of both federal and contractor personnel may be required as a result of factors beyond our control," she wrote.
Miller's memo states that the semiautonomous Energy Department agency is "working to avoid or minimize furloughs of NNSA's federal work force to the extent possible." If furloughs become necessary, the agency would notify employees "as soon as that becomes a certainty" and at least 30 days in advance of action, pursuant to federal law.
The 2011 Budget Control Act requires the federal government to cut $85 billion in spending for the remainder of this fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. Congress and the White House were not expected to agree on an alternative plan ahead of the Friday deadline.
Miller told Global Security Newswire that NNSA officials should know more about possible furloughs of agency staff "within a month." She said it would be up to private companies to determine when contract personnel might be forced to take unpaid time off from work.
B&W, the contractor at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee, plans to spread potential furlough days for nonessential employees between April and October in an effort to minimize the impact on workers and disruptions at the facility, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on Friday. President Chuck Spencer said the company would submit its plan to NNSA officials next week.
"From an operational standpoint, our first priority will be to maintain the systems at the site that allow us to operate safely and securely," Spencer said. "Our next priority will be to accomplish as much work as we can under a reduced schedule. Some work that can be moved into next year would be rescheduled, and some discretionary activities would be eliminated."
During a Feb. 14 hearing on Capitol Hill, Miller provided some insight into how sequestration would impact NNSA programs. She said certain efforts to extend the lives of aging nuclear warheads would continue, while others would be delayed.
"We will ensure that that there is no impact on the continuing life extension of the W-76 warhead, we must deliver that for national security reasons, but there will be delays to the B-61 life extension schedule and the W-88 Alt [370] schedule," Miller said. The W-76 and W-78 warheads are carried by submarine-launched ballistic missiles while the B-61 gravity bomb is carried by a variety of military aircraft.
"Reductions across the board will include reductions to surveillance of the stockpile," Miller said at the time. Safety upgrades being made to Plutonium Facility 4 at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico due to concerns about seismic activity in the area will be delayed, she said.
NEXT STORY: Fed Stress Doesn't Faze Sequestration Supporters


text:
Finding Aid
Records of the Civilian Pilot Training Program Access and Restrictions: This collection is open for research. Digital Surrogates: Except where indicated, this document describes but does not reproduce the actual text, images and objects which make up this collection. Materials are available only in the Special Collections Department. Copyright: Please read The University of Iowa Libraries' statement on Property Rights, Copyright Law, and Permissions to Use Unpublished Materials. Use of Collections: The University of Iowa Libraries supports access to the materials, published and unpublished, in its collections. Nonetheless, access to some items may be restricted by their fragile condition or by contractual agreement with donors, and it may not be possible at all times to provide appropriate machinery for reading, viewing or accessing non-paper-based materials. Please read our Use of Manuscripts Statement. Acquisition and Processing Information: These materials were transferred to the University Archives prior to 1970. Finding aid posted to the Internet June 2011. Photographs: Box 1 |
Robert Valentino Abate, U. S. Naval V5 instructor, application photograph, February 18, 1944 |
Scope and Contents
These papers include reports, correspondence, course schedules, and applications of instructors for the Civilian Pilot Training Program from 1942 to 1944 at the State University of Iowa.
Correspondence is included from the Naval Aviation Cadet Selection Board, St. Louis, Missouri, and the Civil Aeronautics Administration Civilian Pilot Training, Kansas City, Missouri, within the reports series. There is correspondence with the Shaw Aircraft Company, which operated a flight school at the Iowa City Municipal Airport. The U. S. Naval contract includes correspondence with John P. Morris, director of the Civil Aeronautics Administration War Training Service in Washington, D. C.
Applications for instructor positions included in this collection were primarily received between March and May 1943. Some letters of application noted that War Training Service programs on their local campuses had been discontinued, while others were applying for positions because they had recently graduated from courses. Applications arrived from Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, and Oregon.
Reports include the names of graduated students.
Eight-week course schedules cover the entire period of the War Training Service Program, from summer 1942 to spring 1944.
Historical Note
The Civilian Pilot Training Program was established in September 1939 on campuses nationwide, in anticipation of the need for increased numbers of pilots beyond what the armed forces was prepared to train. It was sponsored by the Civilian Aeronautics Administration as an extracurricular activity for college students. This civilian program was transformed into a military program during the summer of 1942. It was renamed the War Training Service Program and was designed for Army or Navy Air Corps cadets. In addition, the program provided supervisory training to Naval officers. According to the National Museum of the U. S. Air Force Web site, the services ended their contracts with the CPTP/WTS in early 1944 and the program was dissolved in 1946.
Related Materials
Folder, "Croft, Huber O.," Faculty and Staff Vertical Files collection (RG 01.15.03)
Folder, "Dawson, Francis M.," Faculty and Staff Vertical Files collection (RG 01.15.03)
Folder, "Lundquist, Elmer C.," Faculty and Staff Vertical Files collection (RG 01.15.03)
Papers of Elmer C. Lundquist (RG 99.0241)
Resource Guide to Military and Wartime Service
Box Contents List
Applications for instructor positions
Abate, Robert Valentino, photograph attached
Aguirre, James Brassell, photograph attached
Carnes, G. C.
Collier, Lauren Kent, photograph attached
Cunningham, Chester Clyde
Gardner, Eugene V.
Gilbert, Donald
Green, Jess D.
Hofstad, Anton, photograph attached
Holtman, John Monroe, photograph attached
Houser, H. F.
Immerman, David
Jones, Harry
Kirlin, S. Warner
Leu, Elmer Roy, photograph attached
Mason, Sam
McDowell, Floyd
Noble, Carl Elroy
Oppenheim, Theodore S.
Rudin, John Jesse, photograph attached
Scott, Lee
Shelden, Joseph Paul
Slayton, Clarence Harvy
Weblemoe, James L.
Zeiger, Hal
Zeiger, Harold, photograph attached
Reclassification requests
Gilbert, Donald
Hofstad, Anton
Holtman, John Monroe
Noble, Carl Elroy
Slayton, Clarence Harvy
Buckley Hotel, Iowa City, regarding beds for cadets, 1943-1944
Shaw Aircraft Company, Iowa City Municipal Airport, 1942-1943
U. S. Navy contract and correspondence, 1943-1944
Course Schedules, War Training Service
Summer 1942-fall 1943
Fall 1943-spring 1944
Iowa City CPT inspection, 1942
Mid-course reports, 1942
Semi-annual reports from Civil Aeronautics, 1942-1944
Graduated students, 1943-1944


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Ayoub Massoudi, a former advisor to Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, faces a military trial over his declarations regarding the extradition of former Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi (under Gaddafi).
Fearing that Mahmoudi would not get a fair trial in Libya, President Moncef Marzouki had opposed the extradition. Yet, the government presided over by Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali sent Mahmoudi back home on June 24, 2012, without notifying the president who on that same day was touring the south of Tunisia, accompanied by Rachid Ammar [Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Armed Forces] and Abdelkrim Zbidi [Minister of Defence].
In a televised interview, dated July 15, and aired on the privately-owned Attounisia TV channel, Massoudi described the extradition process as a "treason against the State", because Ammar and Zbidi who "were aware of the extradition, its time, and all of its circumstances… did not utter a word, and did not inform the President who is the Commander-in-Chief."
Following a complaint lodged against him by General Rachid Ammar, Ayoub Massoudi faces charges of "harming the army's dignity, reputation, and morale" and "accusing without proof a public officer.
Although Ayoub is not behind bars, a travel ban was imposed on him. On August 16, authorities at the Tunis Carthage Airport prevented him from boarding a plane to join his family in Paris.
Chayma Mehdi tweets [fr]:
#AyoubMassouadi n'a pas été arrêté certes, n'empêche #FreeAyoub. Parce-qu'on est censé être libre de quitté ou non notre pays.
Malek Khadhraoui, editor-in-chief of Nawaat.org, reports [fr]:
Ayoub Massoudi n'a reçu aucune notification au sujet de la plainte déposée contre lui par l'armée
"Treason against the State" not "High Treason"
The award-winning collective blog Nawaat.org obtained a copy of General Ammar's testimony in Massoudi's case. Ramzi Bettibi (aka Winston Smith) reports [ar]:
Bettibi adds:
Trial to resume next week
On August 22, the second hearing in Massoudi's case took place at the Tunis based Permanent Military Court. The trial will resume on August 30. Nawaat reports [fr] on its Facebook page:
#freeayoub La deuxième audition de Ayoub Massoudi vient de s'achever. Le juge d'instruction militaire a décidé d'une 3e audition le 30 août 2012. Ayoub Massoudi y comparaîtra libre mais demeure sous le coup de l'interdiction de voyager
Ayoub Massoudi resignation
It is worth mentioning that Ayoub Massoudi resigned on June 28, after serving as President Marzouki's top media advisor for ten months. The decision came in protest at what Massoudi described as his "exclusion" from decision-making in the presidential cabinet.
He announced his resignation on his blog in a post [fr] entitled "Je suis enfin libre" (Free at last). He wrote:
C'est en toute liberté et sans aucune contrainte ou pression que j'annonce cette démission, motivée par le respect immense que je voue à la Révolution tunisienne, aux martyrs, à l'Etat, aux tunisiens et à tous les contribuables qui payent mon salaire pour un métier que je n'exerce pas dans les faits. Pourtant, dieu sait combien j'ai essayé.
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[…] Massoudi, a former advisor to current President Moncef Marzouki faces military trial over his televised declarations on the extradition of former Gaddafi PM from Tunisia to Libya. […]
[…] the army and "undermining senior officials in the military", over his televised declarations [en] regarding the extradition of former Muammar Gaddafi's Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi to […]
[…] モンセフ・マルズーキ現大統領の元顧問であるAyoub Massoudiは、旧カダフィ政権の首相のチュニジアからリビアへの引き渡しをテレビで公表した件で、軍事裁判に臨む。 Massoudiは、バグダディ・マハムーディ(訳注:旧カダフィ政権首相)の引き渡しを、「国家への反逆」と評し、Rachid Ammar(チュニジア軍参謀長)とAbdelkrim Zbidi(防衛大臣)に対し、6月14日に行われた引き渡し手続きをマルズーキ大統領に届け出なかったことを非難した。 9月21日、Massoudiは、4ヶ月の執行猶予付の有罪判決を言い渡された。次の法廷での審理は、1月3日に行われる。 […]
[…] 2012, a former advisor to then-president Moncef Marzouki was prosecuted before a military court for criticizing the role of the army and its chief of staff in the […]